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It’s the time once again, folks. Another World of Warcraft expansion is about to drop and bring with it a flood of tears, joy, and general anger at the Blizzard Developers.

Despite being over ten years old, World of Warcraft has managed to latch itself onto so many people like a giant tick that sucks out time and energy instead of precious, nutrient rich blood. The latest venture of this gigantic franchise has the Heroes of Azeroth confronting the mad titan Sargeras and his legion on the broken isles. If it wasn’t already obvious, this new expansion is entitled World of Warcraft: Legion, and we have a list of unreleased features that will be in the game upon launch. A lot of these features haven’t been touched upon and will add a new dynamic to the game.

Without further adieu …

5. Dual Wielded Bucklers

Introduced in the original beta of World of Warcraft and later shelved, the buckler was a half shield that could be used by Hunters and Rogue.

Blizzard has incorporated this piece of equipment back into the game to give rogues what they’ve always wanted … the ability to tank!

Confused?So am I.

According to Chris Metzen, a Senior Vice President at Blizzard, this move is a first of many to slowly create tanking specs for each class no matter how impractical it may be.

Now you might be asking yourself, “How does a rogue do damage to hold aggro with two shields?” The Blizzard developers have solved this issue by giving a talent to all Rogue specs that allows them to stand on one leg and hold a dagger for attacking in their other foot.

4. New Reporting System

New virtue signal animation

With the “success” of their recent reporting system for Overwatch, Blizzard has decided to not only integrate this into the new World of Warcraft expansion but also gamify it.

The new reporting tool uses a simple leveling system that allows you to gain xp for reporting people. If you get enough report xp, you’ll gain a level and a new “virtue signal” animation similar to the regular level up animation will let people know you’ve leveled up in your ability to be offended.

Details are scant for now, but Blizzard has hinted at providing special cosmetic items when you reach a certain level. These include: multicolored hair that can be applied at the barbershop, a neckbeard, and a fedora.

3. Failure Achievements

With each new expansion for World of Warcraft, we see a surge in new achievements. With World of Warcraft: Legion, Blizzard aims to mix things up by adding a new category of achievements called “failures.”

In an effort to prevent players from not making noob mistakes, Blizzard has opted not to display the descriptions or even list the failure achievements under the in-game achievement interface. You’ll only know what your epic failure is after you’ve already failed, just like real life.

On top of appearing in your achievement list for everyone to see, Blizzard has decided to integrate the failure achievements into the new Order Halls. After certain failures are committed a “failure monument” will appear in your Order Hall displaying your name and character picture so even cross-faction players can shame you into submission.

Some of these failures include:

Don’t Stand in the F***ing Fire: You stood in the f***ing fire.

Tank, WTF Are You Wearing?: Queued up for a tank role in the dungeon finder wearing PVP gear.

Kicking Back: Get kicked from a raid or dungeon group 10/50/100 times.

2. EZ-Mode Dungeons

New ez-mode for the dungeon finder.

One of the more controversial changes in World of Warcraft: Legion is the addition of a new dungeon mode. On top of players being able to choose between normal, heroic and mythic modes, they can now choose to run a dungeon in “ez-mode.”

Ez-mode dungeons function just like normal dungeons; however, the biggest difference is you don’t have to fight anything at all. No bosses, no mobs, nothing. The only caveat is that you must run through the entire dungeon.

Amid the confused “WTFs” of elitists WoW players everywhere, the developer behind the new ez-mode explained his philosophy behind this new way of running dungeons:

We saw immense success and positivity in the community in how we handled obtaining flight in previous expansions of World of Warcraft. We expanded a bit on this in Warlords of Draenor and then we started to think …’Why not apply this same philosophy to dungeons?”

So we got together and designed this new mode for dungeons that basically forces you to enjoy the architecture and design of the dungeon without the distractions of having to kill bosses or MOBs.

1. Gold Farming Service

Since its inception, World of Warcraft has suffered from a number of issues. Bugs, OP classes, Mage QQ have always been high on Blizzard’s list of fixes, but one of the top problems they’ve always struggled to address is gold farmers.

With World of Warcraft: Legion, Blizzard has decided to take a proactive approach to this by setting up their own gold farming service where players can pay for gold. On top of that, they’ve hamstrung the competition by poaching thousands of gold farmers from gold farming companies all over the world and, in effect, monopolizing the problem.

After the original announcement, Blizzard had remained silent until about a month ago when they released the following statement:

While a gold farming service may be one of our more controversial moves, we believe in taking drastic measure to combat gold spamming.

Our efforts are also humanitarian. These gold farmers work in the same exact conditions and for the same amount of pay, except a company that listens to its community now holds the whip.

The new gold farming service will launch with World of Warcraft: Legion and be accessible from the in-game menu. Blizzard has said prices will be “reasonable” but will also fluctuate depending on the server economy.

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Graphic and web designer by day, amateur digital artist/illustrator and writer for Techraptor by night. When I’m not doing any of those things, you can find me getting extremely angry in WoW as I watch my Moonkin get killed multiple times in PVP or drinking scotch.